The present invention relates to a novel and useful apparatus for laying paving fabric.
A recent development in the construction and repair of asphalt surfaces includes the laying of a sheet of paving fabric generally formed from polypropylene, polyethylene or the like. It has been found that the use of paving fabric permits the binding of the old asphalt to the new asphalt overlay while maintaining a moisture impermeable barrier. The result is that reflective cracking of asphalt surfaces is prevented in the future.
In the past, the paving fabric has been placed down manually, but this has proved to be unsatisfactory since the sheet material being unrolled must be aligned with the paving surface perimeter and must be free of wrinkles. Reference is made to the U.S. Pat. No. 3,913,854 to McClure which describes a device for tensioning fabric rolls. The prior art fabric roll laying devices suffer from the inability to accommodate different sized rolls and the elimination of wrinkles from the fabric after it is placed on the surface being paved. In addition, the prior devices have been unwieldy and are not compactly transported from one worksite to another.
A paving machine which overcomes the obstacles and shortcomings of the devices of the prior art would be a great advance in the field of constructing and repairing paved surfaces.